Hearthstone Heroes Of Warcraft / Tropes S to Z

Tropes found in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
Tropes A to B | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to L | Tropes M to R | Tropes S to Z

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S

• Sarcasm Mode: The emotes often come off as this to many people, which is made more ambiguous by the lack of any other chat in random play. It doesn't help that many of the heroes' voices sound smug and condescending.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The flavor text for Bloodlust is simply "blaarghghLLGHRHARAAHAHHH!!" Not that it needs any more, since the sound of the spell being cast is unmistakable.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: The appropriately named BEEEES!!! from Uldum, which summons a swarm of bees to attack a target. Can notably also be cast on your own minions, making it useful for triggering Overkill effects on minions that can survive the attacks (like, say, a Linecracker).
• Scratch Damage Enemy:
  • The Steel Sentinel is a boss in the League of Explorers adventure with the gimmick that it only takes 1 damage from all sources. On Heroic mode, this extends to all of its minions as well. Defeating it awards you with Animated Armor, which causes your hero to only take one damage at a time while its in play.
  • Moonfang is a legendary minion that only takes one damage at a time. She's already tough to bring down at her default 3 health, but buffing her health can make her nearly unkillable.
• Screen Shake: The screen shakes whenever a minion or hero with high Attack strikes a target; 6 or 7 Attack results in a moderate shake, while a heavier one occurs if it had 8+ Attack, accompanied by a cloud of dust and debris (the thresholds are increased in Mercenaries and Battlegrounds). When either hero is destroyed, a much heavier screen shake occurs. This can be turned off in the settings menu.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: To get Azari the Devourer, you need to summon a certain legendary minion whose battlecry is giving you the First Seal card into your hand. Casting the First Seal summons a demon and Second Seal. You need to keep casting the Seal until the Fifth and final Seal, which gives you Azari whose battlecry outright destroys the enemy's deck, immediately sending them into fatigue. That being said, since it takes a total of 41 mana for this effect to take place, to call it Awesome, but Impractical may be an understatement.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Doomsayer minion destroys all minions on the board (including himself) if he is alive at the start of your turn. In other words, the end of the world only happens because he's there predicting it.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Before its rotation from Standard, there was a "Cursed Blade Challenge" going around, involving the player equipping Cursed Blade^note 1-mana 2/3 Warrior weapon that doubles all damage dealt to your hero from their very first turn, never letting it get used up or get broken (or at least replacing it shortly afterwards without taking damage in between), and defeating the opponent only while both players are in fatigue (to avoid minimizing the downsides of the Blade by rushing the opponent down). It needed ridiculous luck to beat, but it was satisfying to do so.
• Sequence Breaking:
  • Druids can make use of Innervate (+1 mana for that turn only) and Wild Growth (+1 empty mana crystal to be filled next turn) to play cards of higher mana cost that could normally be played at that stage in the game. They can also use Biology Project (+2 mana for both players for the price of 1 mana) to deliberately invoke this. In fact, if you have both copies of Innervate and Biology Project while going second with The Coin (another free +1 mana), it's actually possible to play something for 6 mana as early as turn 1! With The Grand Tournament expansion, Astral Communion discards your hand but grants you 10 mana crystal for 4 mana, which means you can play big minions way, way earlier, as long as you actually draw them... There's also Duskfallen Aviana, who makes the first card played each turn cost 0, which is good... except for the fact the effect works for your opponent first.
  • Nozdormu the Timeless, a Paladin legendary, maxes out both player's mana crystals as early as turn 4, instantly bringing the game to its late game phase.
  • Rogue has a lesser version named Preparation, which gives them a 2-mana discount on their next spell. On one hand, Preparation can't stack with itself unlike Innervate (and only works with spells), but on the other hand, it's a bigger discount, and it works very well with the Rogue's Combo cards. Mean Street of Gadgetzan gave Rogues a Counterfeit Coin, which is basically the same as the usual Coin in terms of effect, but thus allows Rogues to play more expensive cards sooner than normal. It gets even crazier with Academic Espionage from The Boomsday Project, which shuffles in 10 random cards cards from your opponent's class which cost 1 mana, which means it's actually possible to play something as much as 10 Mana on turn 2 if you play Coin + Preparation + Academic Espionage.
  • The Giant Warlock deck (or Handlock) can do this in a sense. The whole point is to exploit his Gul'dan's hero power to keep hurting himself and drawing cards so that he can play Mountain Giant (12 mana, costs 1 less for each card in his hand) and Molten Giant (25 mana, costs 1 less for each point of damage your hero has taken) much faster than normal.
  • Many, many ways to cheat out minions early have been devised in Hearthstone's history, including but not limited to:
    • Cards that summon weaker copies of another minion (Barnes, Shadow Essence, Dollmaster Dorian); while weak on their own, any Resurrection effect will bring them back to life with full stats
    • Recruit cards with high level or no level restrictions (Possessed Lackey, Gather Your Party)
    • Cards that summon certain minions out of their hand (Skull of the Man'ari, Coffin Crasher)
    • Cards that swap out minions with something else (Madam Goya, Dr. Morrigan)
    • Cards that summon random minions in a controlled method (Ancestor's Call, Eureka!, Duel!), if you build your deck around big minions
    • Or any combination of the above. Here's an example: On turn 5, Rogue plays Kobold Illusionist, triggers Deathrattle with Necrium Blade, summons a 1/1 Sliver Vanguard that was in their hand, Silver Vanguard dies and Recruits a 8-mana minion like Ragnaros or Lich King.
• Servile Snarker: Unlike other minions, a handful of demons don't feel like fighting and consistently make their grievances clear.
  Blood Imp: Sure, send the little guy!
  Flame Imp: Ugh, is this really necessary?
  Imp Gang Boss: Fine! Gosh!
  Felguard: Too pathetic to fight your own battles?
  Malchezaar's Imp: I don't wanna!
  Witchwood Imp: This was NOT in my contract.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: This is the default setting in this game: Whenever a card is transformed into a different card, it will remain as that new card for the rest of the match. This becomes important once you include recycling effects such as reanimation; If your Ragnaros gets polymorphed into a sheep then killed, you will revive him as a sheep and not Ragnaros.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Sometimes the best move is to do nothing and just pass. As some cards require a minion^note and some of them require specifically enemy minion as a valid target, keeping your board empty might make them unable to reduce the size of their hand and thus risk overdrawing and burning their key card. Thijs in particular is a fan of this. It's just turn 2 and the enemy Druid hit his Warrior for free 1 damage? Joke's on the Druid, as that gives extra card draw with Battle Rage. Enemy is Mecha'Thun Druid with 4 cards left in hand? Play nothing so the Druid can't use their Wrath or Spellstone, sending them over the edge and play Mecha'thun too early.
  • Quest Priests playing Activate the Obelisk is notorious for invoking this, as their quest requires healing 15 Health. The best thing for the opponent to do in the early turns is to avoid attacking the Priest to slow down their quest progress.
• Shoot the Medic First: It's generally a good idea to target continuously healing minions (Lightwell in particular) as soon as possible before they become a nuisance. The Repair Bot has the unique distinction of randomly healing both friendly and enemy characters, making it a potential liability for its owner as well. The biggest of this is Kel'Thuzad, who will resurrect any dead minion at the end of every turn. Either you silence or take him out first, or your efforts will be futile.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Bloodmage Thalnos is a 1/1 Legendary for 2 mana that adds +1 spell damage and a Deathrattle that draws you a card. Too simple to be worth silencing, he is considered an excellent addition in a wide variety of decks.
  • Acidic Swamp Ooze is a basic card, a 3/2 for 2 mana, making it a solid minion to play in most cases. However, its weapon-destroying Battlecry is simply invaluable versus weapon users. The only other minions that outright destroy enemy weapons are Gluttonous Ooze or Harrison Jones, which are epic and legendary respectively.
  • In general, Class-specific cards are just plain more efficient than the Neutral ones. For example, Water Elemental may deal less damage than Chillwind Yeti, but it's also tougher and comes with Freeze effect which is incredibly useful against weapon users.
  • The Tavern Brawl "Top 2" enforces this. Players choose only two cards and their deck is filled with fifteen of each. Thus players are forced to come up with extremely simple strategies to win. The sequel, Top 3, does the same but with ten copies of three cards.
• Situational Sword: Some cards are very good at dealing with certain situations only, but since opponents can come with any deck, it's a matter of luck whether they'll actually see any real use. It should be noted that such cards are generally looked down upon during deck construction as they occupy valuable deck space, but if obtained via random card generation or through the Discover mechanic they may have been generated in the exact situation where they shine best.
  • One example is the Blood Knight, a 3-cost 3/3 minion who removes all divine shields on that are on the board at the time of play and gains +3/+3 for each shield removed this way. Extremely useful against (or for) Paladins and the non-class specific divine shield minions, but otherwise just an average 3-cost minion that could potentially take up a slot for a better card.
  • Big Game Hunter is another classic example, able to neutralize any minion with 7 or more attack when played... great against many Legendaries or buff-dependent strategies, but against aggro decks that employ a Zerg Rush, that will rarely come into play. Fortunately, it would later be made Tradeable, allowing you to cycle the card away if you're in a matchup where it's not useful.
  • Eater of Secrets is all but explicitly stated to be the counter to Secret Paladin. With no secrets to remove, a 2/4 for 4 Mana is crappy. With one secret, 3/5 is under par, but at least it removed a secret, and all the better if it was a Mage's Ice Block standing between you and victory. After your opponent just played Mysterious Challenger? They just got a major pain in the ass to remove. Lampshaded by its summoning quote, which seems to directly address the Mysterious Challenger.
    Mysterious Challenger: Who am I? None of your business!
    Eater of Secrets: I know who you are!
  • Skulking Geist is a hard counter against Jade Druid (specifically, the card Jade Idol) due to its effects of destroying all 1-cost spells in all players' decks. However, by the time a 6-cost minion hits the board, most other decks can make do without their 1-cost spells anyway, and Skulking Geist's horrid stats won't help much in that case. Hilariously enough, Skulking Geist also spells disaster against anyone who played the spell Explore Un'Goro, which replaces their entire deck with copies of a 1-mana spell that Discovers a random card.
• Single-Use Shield: Divine Shield protects a minion from the first instance of damage it would take. This allows minions to survive a blow from even the mighty Deathwing, but the shield also breaks under a single point of damage.
• Skill Gate Characters:
  • C'thun and his cultists are Hearthstone's version of a starter deck, being easy to use, easy to understand, and since most of the synergy cards are neutral, playable in every class.
  • All of the final bosses from the adventures are meant to be huge, game ending bombshells for people who don't have the dust or gold income to afford a more powerful one. Prince Malchezaar is probably the best example, as he shuffles 5 random legendaries into your deck, letting you play with extremely strong cards you don't own. However, as a player's collection expands and their deck adopts a more focused strategy, Prince Malchezaar starts running the risk of thickening the deck with cards that don't contribute to the strategy, leading to unfavored draws.
  • Aggro decks are generally considered beginner's decks: easy to pick up and learn and good at stomping their way through the lower ranks, but fall off as you climb the ladder and meet players that can shut them down more effectively. That being said, a skilled player can viably play aggro decks at higher levels and many players do hit Legend with them, but a new players tend to be more successful with aggro decks than the other deck archetypes.
  • Whizbang the Wonderful is less so a card and more of a deck randomizer. Playing a deck with Whizbang in it results in him giving you a random deck recipe made by Blizzard, allowing you to play with at at least 100 cards you may or may not already own. The decks feature coherent strategies and solid cards, but are un-optimized, meaning that a wealthier player will likely be able to make something better and won't see any reason to use him. That said, he also allows poorer players to gain access to a massive chunk of the game's library for just 1600 dust! His successor - Zayle, Shadow Cloak - does the same thing, only with 2 major differences: the recipes are more limited (only 5 decks are available compared to Whizbang's 18) and he does not have to be opened in a pack or crafted, as purchasing the Dalaran Heist adventure will unlock him for free.
• Spiders Are Scary: Parodied in Curse of Naxxramas as Kel'Thuzad presents Maexxna.
  Kel'thuzad: Maexxna is a GIANT SPIDER! MUAHAHAHAHA!
• Splash Damage Abuse: Like some other card games, AOE spells can be used to indirectly damage or de*stroy minions that cannot normally be targeted, usually because of Stealth, their inherent spell protection, or simply hiding behind an annoying Taunt minion.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • The Mage class received this complaint due to the fact that Jaina is the player's starting hero, the class has many powerful (sometimes to the point of Game-Breaker status) cards such as Fireball, Frostbolt, Flamestrike, Polymorph, etc. What pushed this over the edge for the players is the announcement that the recent patch would add Khadgar - the second alternative hero for Mage after Medivh instead of other classes (Rogue, Priest, Druid, Shaman and Warlock) that didn't even receive one.
  • In term of cards, C'Thun is clearly this for the Whisper of the Old Gods expansion because of the number of cards that specifically buffed it compare to the other Old Gods who simply support other cards type that existed prior (N'Zoth for Deathrattle minions, Yogg-Saron for spells and Y'Shaarj for big costed minions).
  • In a more meta example, if Blizzard prints several class-specific cards that are meant to create an archetype and it ends up being terrible, players will complain and claim they're "wasted card slots". The same applies if Blizzard prints a few cards over several expansions that are either archetype cards that are not enough to make a low tier archetype good enough (Ex. The constant trickling of Discardlock cards in 2017) or give a class too good cards when they're already at the top of the meta (Ex. Shaman in 2016, Priest in 2017).
• Status-Buff Dispel: Silence effects are useful for negating whatever buffs an opposing minion has (especially Deathrattle effects). The Priest spell Mass Dispel does this on all enemies at once.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: Mages have a number of cards that gain bonus effects if used on Frozen targets, usually dealing extra damage or outright destroying the target.
• Stealth Pun: One Night in Karazhan's disco theme isn't totally out of left field. In World of Warcraft, Karazhan is a dungeon that opens to players at level 68, and is useful for leveling and gear for some levels thereafter. In other words, it's a seventies dungeon.
• Stone Wall: Some taunt cards balance out high health with little to no attack power, though giving a creature the same attack power as their health can cost as little as one mana with the right card. Some non-taunt minions also have these kinds of stats, making them perfect for other cards that give minions taunt.
• Streamer-Friendly Mode: Streamer Mode censors the player's name and Battletag, as well as their opponent's name, to protect streamers' privacy.
• Stuff Blowing Up: While it has existed since classic, GvG brought a multitude of explosive cards such as Darkbomb, Lightbomb, Madder Bomber, Bomb Lobber, and more.
• Surplus Damage Bonus: Normally, dealing excessive damage to a minion is discouraged as a core concept of the game is efficient trading of minions, but it's invoked with the Overkill mechanic introduced in Rastakhan's Rumble. You gain bonus effects by dealing more damage than necessary to kill a minion. Even before Rumble, Mage had Explosive Runes, a Secret that damages an enemy minion and then inflicts any excess damage to the enemy hero.
• Switch-Out Move: The whole point of the Alarm-o-Bot is to sneak big creatures into play on the sly. Players of Animate Dead decks from Magic: The Gathering will feel right at home.
• Symmetric Effect:
  • As part of their Power at a Price design, many Warlock cards inflict a penalty on both players. For example, Hellfire damages everything in play, including both heroes, and Altar of Fire mills the top three cards of each deck.
  • In opposition to Warlocks, several Druid cards give positive effects to both players. Grove Tender has a "Choose One" effect that either grants both players 1 extra mana crystal or draws one card for both players, and Dew Process makes it so that both players draw an extra card at the start of their turn for the rest of the game. Duskfallen Aviana is an example of a symmetric effect primarily benefitting the user's opponent. She makes the first card on each player's turn free. Unfortunately, this means that your opponent gets to take advantage of it first, so they can get a free card and then kill Aviana before you get to use her effect.
  • Two of Paladin's major themes are having "fair" effects, and manipulating minion stats. They have multiple cards that change the stats of both friendly and enemy minions in play, including Equality (to 1 health), Sunkeeper Tarim (to 3/3), and Shrink Ray (to 1/1).
  • The "project" cycle (Biology Project, Demonic Project, Research Project, and Weapons Project) from The Boomsday Project are all cheap spells that give something to both players, related to their respective class's strengths. Likewise, the vendors from Madness at the Darkmoon Faire (Armor Vendor, Prize Vendor, Banana Vendor, and Knife Vendor) are neutral minions with symmetrical Battlecries.

T

• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
  • Your deck will most likely be this: strong versus certain opponents and weak against others. A basic example would be the Aggro - Midrange/Tempo - Control deck. Aggro would beat Midrange before they can get their key cards, Control could not keep up against the Tempo of Midrange decks, and Aggro would not be able to penetrate Control's defense.
  • Naturally, the metagame changes so there will be a different case of Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors every time. And of course, depending on the decks and player skill levels in question, decks can potentially beat decks intended to counter them.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Loatheb in the Naxxramas expansion. He begins the fight with 75hp (in contrast to the standard 30), but the unique spell cards he uses create spores that, when defeated, give your minions +8 attack.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Can be done with the battlecry effects of Youthful Brewmaster or Ancient Brewmaster, which sends an allied minion back to its owner's hand. One can make a strategy out of getting double use out of battlecry minions by summoning, withdrawing, then summoning again (or just to recall wounded powerhouses then re-summon at full health). Rogue also has a few cards that do the same, with one of them, Vanish, even causing minions to return en masse.
  • The Shaman "Reincarnation" spell works in a similar fashion, but destroys the target and then resurrects it, which not only skips the need to summon it again, but also triggers Deathrattle effects.
• Talk Like a Pirate: The game acknowledges International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day by giving all characters special greeting emotes for the occasion. Well, except a few...
  Gul'dan: Pirate's Day? I don't get it...
  Khadgar: We celebrate... sea criminals today?
  Rastakhan: When de king approves, it is called privateering.
  Sylvanas: Shiver me - eh, whatever.
• Take That!:
  • The final tutorial quest is the first one to use all the rules and start the players off on even footing. The advice text tells you it's horribly unbalanced and you should blame the game designers. (Though ironically, your opponent does have some incredibly powerful creatures and cheap spells at his disposal, and the decks are stacked so you'll get an easy victory if you keep your head. The lesson here is to learn how it's always possible to turn a game around.)
  • The common Loot Hoarder card is a general Take That! toward the more greedy players of World of Warcraft, specifically the line, "Mind if I roll 'Need'?" (A common way to hog loot used to be to click "Need" rather than "Greed" every time an item dropped, even if one didn't really need it.)
  • The flavor text of the card Cursed Blade: "The curse is that you have to listen to 'MMMBop' on repeat."
• Take Up My Sword: Tirion Fordring, the Paladin-exclusive legendary minion, does this to Uther when he finally dies by passing on his Ashbringer, a potent 5/3 weapon.
• Taking You with Me: Rarely, it is possible for games to end on a tie; but the only way to do so is to do something that kills both the enemy hero AND your own. This usually happens because one player cannot win, but can prevent the opponent from taking the victory. The game displays both hero frames exploding (signifying a loss); however, it does not actually count as a loss. For instance, should you end on a tie on an Arena run, it will not increase your loss count, nor your win count.
  • Perhaps the most spectacular way to accomplish this is to somehow acquire the Druid spell Tree of Life (restore all characters' HP to full) as a Priest and playing it while Auchenai Soulpriest (turn all your healing effects to damage) is under your control. The result is the simultaneous implosion of every single minion and hero.
  • There are also minions whose deathrattles may end up taking out a few other minions (and/or a hero) down, such as Abomination and Obsidian Statue. Mecha'tun has one of the more interesting case of Taking You with Me: If he is killed when his owner has nothing left in deck, hand and field, he instantly kills the enemy hero.
• Tempting Fate: A big part of the fun in watching Streamers. Its best not to act cocky when things are going go your way, for fear of drawing the RNG's ire. So you got a board of four 8/8s, whose Deathrattle summons two more 8/8s each. What could possibly go wrong?
• Thanatos Gambit: Deathrattle minions trigger their effect when they die - as such, it is sometimes beneficial to lose your minions. Go through the trouble of slaying the opposing Paladin's Tirion Fordring? The Ashbringer that Uther gets might be what he was really after all along. This is especially true when someone plays Baron Rivendare (which doubles all your Deathrattle triggers) on their turn and start killing off all their Deathrattle minions to get huge advantages. Other cards gain attack power when a minion - any minion - dies, with often ludicrous results.
  • One of the best examples is probably Sylvanas Windrunner, a 6 mana 5/5 whose Deathrattle will possess a random enemy minion when she dies. Opponents who cannot silence her are usually forced to expend their minions rather inefficiently to prevent them from being taken away, which is usually what her owner is counting on.
  • Another example are the various "egg" cards that were printed. They have 0 Attack and their Deathrattle summons a minion with much better stats for their cost. If they kill it too early, the opponent needs to deal with the minion that it summons. If they leave it alone, it gives the opponent a chance to buff them.
  • When Deathrattle trigger effects are involved, the gambit becomes even more risky. Using the above example, do you want to risk leaving that egg alive so they can play Play Dead or Necrium Vial to double or triple its Deathrattle without killing the minion, or do you kill it immediately and just deal with whatever minion it spawns right now instead of maybe making things worse the next turn?
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Several of the weekly Tavern Brawls will make a given minion or class considerably more powerful/useful than normal. The trope also applies to "tech" cards.^note cards chosen to play specifically against certain opponents and deck types.
  • The Spiders Everywhere brawl made sure the only minions players had were beasts, making Tundra Rhino (which gives all your beasts charge) one of the most useful minions around.
  • Likewise a Too Many Portals brawl (which replaced all minions with Unstable Portal) made the Sorcerer's Apprentice's ability to reduce cost of all spells incredibly powerful.
  • While the Double Deathrattle Battler (which double the effect of every Deathrattle) understandably saw a massive increase of minions with Deathrattle, a surprisingly useful card to have in this Brawl is Lil' Exorcist - a Neutral 2/3 for Taunt that has her stats increase by 1/1 for every Deathrattle minion your opponent controls, as it forces your opponent to trade into her with their Deathrattle minions and potentially save you if they have lethal.
  • Not a specific card, but the chat feature became extremely useful in the Brawl United Against Mechazod! as it allows both players to cooperate and know which card to play to get maximum benefit. Of course, this particular brawl also makes cards that benefit the opponent, such as Millhouse Manastorm and Lorewalker Cho, extra useful for helping your partner out.
  • When it comes to specific cards, some cards may have unintended consequences. For example, Bolf Ramshield from The Grand Tournament is considered a very bad card. Poor stats for its 6 mana cost, plus it takes damage if your hero is attacked (making him a glorified 0/9 Taunt in most cases), but does not deal damage to minions that attack you directly. However, come Whispers of the Old Gods, it turns out that Bolf's unique ability allows him to eat an entire C'Thun battlecry of any arbitrary size, leaving the hero unscathed. While you do lose your board, it does give you a turn to remove C'Thun.
  • The "Top 2" Tavern Brawl^note Players chose two cards and got a deck filled with fifteen of each saw a massive influx of Mech Decks, all consisting of Mech Warper (reduces the cost of all mechs in your hand by one) and another mech card. As early as turn two could see players with nearly full boards of minions they summoned for free.
  • Hungry Crab and Golakka Crawler both are cheap creatures designed to kill very specific targets (Murlocs and Pirates respectively), and so will see play depending on the prevalence of either minion type, both in and out of Tavern Brawl.
  • Several cards are so situational that it would be considered madness to even put them in a constructed deck. However, if picked up through the Discover mechanic, there's the possibility that they were discovered in the exact situation where they would shine the most.
  • The Miniature Warfare Brawl makes several expensive minions that normally don't see much use, such as Northsea Kraken, into powerhouses. A shining example is Alexstrasza; while her effect of setting someone's health to 15 isn't bad per se, she often gets sidelined in normal games. Here, she can be dropped on turn 1, immediately halving the enemy's health from the get go.
  • Nightmare Amalgam is a 3-mana 3/4 with the quirk of being treated as all minion types. It didn't make much of a splash in constructed play since it debuted at a time where tribe synergies and minions with no real effect didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, and the only real use it saw was as a beefy early-game murloc or elemental. However, Battlegrounds is all about tribe-specific buffs, which made Nightmare Amalgam the heart of more Battlegrounds strategies than any other card since it benefits from all of them. And to top it all off, it's the only dragon in the game for Zoobot or Menagerie Wizard to buff. Nightmare Amalgam warped the game to the point of Complacent Gaming Syndrome and Blizzard decided to completely remove it from the game^note with The Curator's having the game's only amalgam.
  • Sacrificial Pact is a 0-cost card that kills a demon to heal for 5. It has long been deemed too clunky to use for healing and too situational to be a tech card. It couldn't compete with other healing cards that didn't require sacrificing tempo, and there were a very limited number of enemy demons to be worth using on, and that's if you manage to run into a Demon Warlock deck. While the card did start to see some play in Galakrond Warlock, which vomited more than enough 1/1 Imps to sacrifice, when Demon Hunters arrived and absolutely trashed the meta, Sacrificial Pact suddenly became the best anti-meta tech card to play, so much so that every single Warlock deck ran Sacrificial Pact just to counter Demon Hunters. It got nerfed to target only friendly demons not long after.
• Those Two Guys: George and Karl, two Silver Hand Recruits that gets mentioned in the flavor text for Lost in the Jungle and Vinecleaver from Journey to Un'goro as a Running Gag. Then in Dungeon Run the two would show up as a boss encounter. In the Year of the Dragon, the two get separated and George joins the League of E.V.I.L. to avenge Karl's death, only for the following expansion to show Karl just got lost in Ul'dum. By the end of the storyline, the two reunite with each other.
• Time-Limit Boss:
  • The Crone on Heroic Mode in One Night in Karazhan. After turn 8, she'll draw and play a Twisting Nether every single turn, eventually letting her kill you with her Hero Power.
  • A. F. Kay from the Dungeon Run. She starts by doing nothing for six turns, but realises she's in a fight then plays Boots of Haste and fills the board with 8/8 minions. If she's not dead by that point, you will be.
  • Certain deck archetypes aiming for one-turn-kills are basically this. Some of the notorious ones are Shudderwock Shaman from Witchwood and Mecha'thun from Boomsday. Unless you can throw a wrench in their plans, your chance for winning is limited by how fast they can get their key cards and complete their win condition.
• Tournament Arc:
  • The Grand Tournament is set in a colossal tournament where all are invited to compete.
  • Rastakhan's Rumble is built around a tournament between trolls, and its Rumble Run solo adventure is focused around leading a rookie troll combatant to glory in the ring.
• Trash Talk: Rather than allow direct chat between players, Blizzard limits in-match communication to a set of six emotes ^note Unless your opponent is on your friend list, of course. Players have developed a complex and nuanced language out of these emotes, managing to display frustration, sarcasm, and appreciation depending on the circumstances. If you don't want any of it, you can squelch your opponent.
• Troll:
  • The Annoy-o-Tron card, a 1/2 mech with Taunt and Divine Shield to stop any offensive, with a red afro, flashing lights for eyes, and bells, repeatedly chanting Hello! Hello! Hello!
  • Hecklebot, notable for having 18 different taunting voicelines as it is played or attacks. Its flavor text even says "Built by goblins, designed by trolls."
• Turns Red:
  • Enrage minions^note A retired keyword, but still informally referred to as such will trigger their effect while damaged, and this effect can be anything from massively increased damage to attacking twice a turn, making it prudent to finish them in one hit or at least minimize the damage they can do. Healing them to full again makes them calm down, though. A few cards have other similar gimmicks related to taking damage, and this can get out of control very quickly, for example, letting Frothing Berserker or Gurubashi Berserker alive for too long after they start taking damage can end the game fast. Appropriately enough, enraged minions have a red aura over their card art.
  • The Warrior can invoke this himself with Mortal Strike, which deals more damage if his health is low.
  • Forged in the Barrens introduced the Frenzy keyword, which activates when the minion survive taking damage the first time.
• Turtle Island: Colaque is depicted as a very large turtle with seaweed, coral, a staircase and an arch on its back. A shark can be seen nearby, and it looks small enough to fit inside Colaque's mouth.

U

• Uniqueness Rule:
  • Most cards can be run at 2 copies, but you can only use one copy of each Legendary, which makes drawing them less consistent.
  • You can play as many cards as you can afford. In contrast, your Hero Power can only be used once per turn. This serves to make it less spammable, as it's always available.
  • "Highlander" cards have extremely powerful effects but have the restriction where your deck cannot contain any duplicates when they're played. Normally this restricts them to a no-duplicate deck. However, you can play a deck that expects to draw all of its cards very quickly, letting you activate the cards after all of your duplicates have been drawn.
  • The Duels game mode starts players with a 16-card deck, with no duplicates allowed in deckbuilding at all. Inverted with the bucket system, where you can pick 3 more cards to add to your deck after every game. Not only can buckets include duplicates, it can break the normal 2 card limit and the 1 Legendary limit, letting you have any number of a specific card if you're lucky.
• Unpredictable Results: There are a lot of cards utilising random effects with such a wide variance of possible options that they're completely and utterly unpredictable. Even the popular Piloted Shredder can alternately summon a Millhouse Manastorm when it dies (very good for its owner), a Darnassus Aspirant (terrible for its owner since you suffer the Deathrattle without benefiting from the Battlecry) or a Doomsayer (potentially catastrophic for either player depending on who has more to lose). Whether or not this constitutes good design or a balance nightmare is an issue of great contention among the player base.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Patchwerk, one of the Naxxramas bosses, doesn't have any cards. That said, it can easily take you out in six turns because of its sheer power: a weapon that never runs out of charges (its deathrattle returns it to the boss's hand) and a hero power that destroys any minion. This extends to his Battlegrounds hero incarnation, where his Hero Power is just a passive max Health bonus.
  • The Ogre-type cards in the GvG expansion are powerful for their mana costs, but have a 50% chance of hitting the wrong target when they attack.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Despite only having the emote system for communication, GIFT is still in full effect and some people will spam emotes constantly, or just use emotes inappropriately, or just make unnecessary or pointless plays (like sacrificing minions without killing anything, or wasting spells that do little to nothing) before actually killing the opponent, just because they can.

V

• Vanilla Unit:
  • There are plenty of minions with no rules text, no rules text besides a keyword, or no rules text besides a Battlecry (an ability that triggers when the minion is played from your hand).
  • The Giant archetype consists of big, expensive minions whose only ability is a cost reduction ability. While you have to exploit the cost reduction to make them worth playing (some of the costs exceed 10 mana, the maximum number of mana crystals, making the ability mandatory to play them at all), once they hit the field, they're essentially vanillas.
• Victory by Endurance: The goal of Mill decks is to exhaust the enemy's deck and watch them die from Fatigue. In Dungeon Run mode, cards fitting said archetype is fittingly labeled as 'Exhaustion'. Can also be done by extreme Stone Wall tactics, healing yourself and refilling your deck as your enemy slowly exhausts theirs and succumb to Fatigue. Dead Man's Hand Warrior is pretty much the epitome of this tactic; the deck has no direct damage at all, but it can repeatedly shuffle armor-giving and board-clearing cards into the deck to destroy the opponent's minions repeatedly and gain armor faster than the enemy can wear it down.
• Villain Episode:
  • Whispers of the Old Gods, an entire expansion based around the theoretical awakening of C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, N'Zoth, and Y'Shaarj as they attempt to conquer and corrupt Azeroth.
  • Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, which followed three notorious crime leaders in a gang war for control of the city.
  • Knights of the Frozen Throne, a What If? scenario where The Lich King succeeded in destroying Azeroth and corrupting its best heroes into Death Knights.
  • Rise of Shadows, a Villain Team-Up of all of Hearthstone's Original Generation villains attempting to rob the city of Dalaran.
• Villain Song: Some of the trailers for certain expansions/updates feature songs sung by villains to indulge in their evilness:
  • The trailer for Whispers of the Old Gods is accompanied by one of the Old Gods' servants, Madam Lazul, singing about their wickedness and how hopeless it is to resist them. The Old Gods get another one with Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, a spooky music box melody about how much of an absolute nightmare the Darkmoon Faire really is.
  • Rise of Shadows' trailer has Rafaam singing his evil plan to other villains gathered, regarding his plan to take Dalaran for all that its got.
  • Trial by Felfire features Mecha-Jaraxxus and his Rusted Legion boasting of how invincible and indomitable he and his forces are, and how they'll conquer Outland, all set to a heavy metal-inspired composition.
  • Mercenaries features Lady Katrana Prestor and Kazakus singing a duet about their scheme to conquer Azeroth - by enlisting a group of mercenaries to do their dirty work.
  • The Deadmines mini-set presents Mr. Smite and the Defias gang singing a shanty about how scary and greedy they are, with Edwin VanCleef himself joining near the end and making threats towards his crew.
  • Onyxia's Lair features Lady Prestor gleefully boasting to the mercenaries about how she compltely played all of them as she takes on her true form.
• Viral Unlockable: The Blood of Hakkar cardback, which is unlocked by playing against someone who currently has it equipped. It automatically equips afterwards, meaning you'll also spread the virus (unless you switch to something else before playing again).
• The Virus: Infectious Sporeling from Ashes of Outland expansion provides a twist to the Poisonous mechanic. If this minion damages a target, the target turns into another Infectious Sporeling. And the target can spread the infection further. Even the flavor text references Agent Smith's famous line:
  —The best thing about being me—there’s so many 'me's

W

• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Some low-cost minions are nothing special in terms of stats, but have useful effects or have the potential to grow stronger- the challenge is keeping them alive long enough to be useful. For example, Alarm-o-Bot is a weak 0/3 for 3 mana minion, but it can potentially bring Deathwing straight to the field as early as turn 3, bypassing its detrimental Battlecry as well.
  • Al'Akir the Windlord, the Shaman legendary minion, can be considered to be this. It has 3/5 stats for 8 mana, which is beyond weak for its cost. However, it also has Windfury, Taunt, Divine Shield, and Charge properties, making it have the most effects of a single minion in the game.
  • Kabal Legendaries from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan combine poor stats for their cost with extreme effects when their activation condition is fulfilled.
  • Zilliax is a 3/2 for 5 mana, but has a fearsome combination of Lifesteal, Divine Shield, Taunt, and Rush. Him being Magnetic also lets him bestow all these abilities to an adjacent Mech.
  • The various Lackey cards introduced in Rise of E.V.I.L. are 1-mana 1/1 minions. Definitely weak, but they come with various effects that can absolutely give your opponent a bad time. Or alternatively, you, if the Faceless Lackey gives you a Doomsayer.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Victory is decided based on whose main hero character reaches zero health first, regardless of what's on the rest of the board. A player can utterly dominate the field with a wall of minions that could steamroll the opponent next turn, but it's all moot if the other player finishes them off with a spell or hero power before that happens.
• Weird Beard: Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is the most powerful of the Old Gods, and it possesses 2 tentacles below its eyes which evoke the image of a mustache. Hilariously, it curls heavily, giving the image of a Dastardly Whiplash.
• Weird West: The "Showdown in the Badlands" expansion takes place in a setting that would be indistinguishable from The Wild West if not for the dragons, elementals, and zombies.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: The Priest spell Shadow Madness takes control of a 3 attack or less minion until the end of the current turn. If it actually survives, it will go back to its original owner.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Related to Tempting Fate above; some minions have detrimental Battlecry or Deathrattle, or one that the enemy can capitalize extensively. The biggest of this is Millhouse Manastorm, a 4/4 for 2 mana is overstatted, but his Battlecry allows your enemy to cast all spells for free next turn. It's only Turn 2, what can possibly go wrong by playing Millhouse against a Hunter?
  Thijs: Sometimes you gotta show balls, guys. It's only Flanking Strike, well it's not very... IT'S SPELL HUNTER!
• When Trees Attack: Malfurion has a few cards like this. He has a trio of huge Ancient minions that act as his exclusive heavy-hitters, and he can summon smaller Treants with a spell (either instantly or by giving his minions a Deathrattle) or with Cenarius' Battlecry effect.
• Why Won't You Die?:
  • A category of Minions nicknamed 'Sticky' have Deathrattle effects that immediately summons another minion of equal or weaker strength, notably the neutral common card Harvest Golem, the Hunter-specific Savannah Highmane and the neutral legendary Cairne Bloodhoof. This is a useful property, as it forces an opponent to either silence it or expend more cards/mana to take it out than normal.
  • This effect can be achieved through other means, such as the Paladin secret Redemption which will resurrect a destroyed minion with 1 HP left, making it more of a hassle to deal with. And then there's Priests, whose healing powers and cards can make killing a high-health minion take ridiculously long if you can't reduce its HP to 0 in one turn. There is also Shaman's Ancestral Spirit, which is a bit like Paladin's Redemption except that it resurrects a killed minion with full health.
  • Gothik The Harvester of Naxxramas summons minions that, when defeated, summons a minion without attack on your side of the field, each of these nigh-useless minions damages their owner for one health each turn. Taking up space and, because they're on your side, make them extremely difficult to get rid of for good.
  • Particularly frustrating and difficult with the Legendary minion Kel'thuzad, which resummons at the end of every turn all friendly minions that died that turn. Yes, every turn, including your opponent's.
  • The Goblins vs Gnomes expansion added three more, although unlike the other examples they spawn a random minion rather than a specific one. Piloted Shredder spawns a random 2 cost minion, Piloted Sky Golem spawns a random 4 cost, and Sneed's Old Shredder spawns a random Legendary, which may include another copy of itself! However, these minions typically cost more than the minions they spawn; Sneed's something of an exception, as there are other Legendary minions who cost 8 mana or more.
  • Rattlegore is a 9/9 minion with a Deathrattle that resummons itself with -1/-1 stats. The first time he dies, he comes back as an 8/8. When he dies again, he's a 7/7, then a 6/6, and so on and so on until he dies as a 1/1.
  • The Grand Tournament added Dreadsteed, which is the most extreme example of this trope in Hearthstone. Any time Dreadsteed is killed it returns to the field at the end of the turn.^note Prior to August 2017, Dreadsteed's revival was immediate.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Unlike most other card games, running out of cards in your deck will not instantly kill you, but rather every time you must draw cards, you will take incremental Fatigue damage, which will eventually do you in if the lack of new cards to play doesn't finish you off first. One can exploit this by somehow forcing an opponent to draw cards to kill them with Fatigue (by killing off all their minions while their Cult Master is in play, for instance) if it's not possible to just kill him directly.
• Wolfpack Boss: The Four Horsemen are the boss of the Military Quarter. Even though only one of them is technically the enemy hero and has only 7 HP, the other 3 start as 1/7 minions on the field and make their hero immune as long as they are alive.
• Wonder Twin Powers: The cards Feugen and Stalagg are 5 mana 4/7 and 7/4's respectively and aren't too amazing on their own. However if the other one already died, they summon the 11/11 Thaddius minion.
• Working on the Chain Gang: The Saronite Chain Gang, which shows a group of chained-up Draenei being forced to mine Saronite for the Scourge, and appropriately comes into play with a copy of itself.
  How loooong can this go on? (How loooong can this go on?)
• Worm in an Apple: Blood Witch Gretta from the The Witchwood is depicted holding an apple with worms sticking out from it and several of her lines are to get the player to eat the apple. Her hero power is Blood Red Apple, a passive ability that makes spells drain health instead of mana.

Y

• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In Ranked Play, players commonly underestimate their true ranking within their region. A player who is, say, Rank 13 in the region may expect to be better than 50% of all players, when really, based on the chart Blizzard provided[1], they're really better than 80% of all players.
• You Bastard!:
  • So you cleared Heroic Naxxramas! Hooray! Hope you happy that you just beat up an old man-turned-into-Lich and his cat. Even the cat's wrapped in bandages!◊
  • Invoked by the lead-up to Rise of Shadows, with all of the villains left in shambles thanks to you. This is especially the case with George, whose partner Karl you killed for kind of no reason. Until Saviors of Uldum revealed that Karl just got lost... again.
• You No Take Candle: The kobolds all invoke the trope upon being summoned. The Kobold Geomancer card even says this verbatim when summoned.
• You Will Be Assimilated: The Rusted Legion's primary goal, as with the Burning Legion. Instead of merely converting races into demons, they embody the spirit of the trope name by converting them into demon cyborgs.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Gul'dan's intro phrase. Thematically, Mill Warlock is this, as they directly destroy or discard the enemy's hand or deck instead of forcing them to overdraw, symbolically destroying their opponent's mind and soul.

Z

• Zerg Rush: There are several cards that invoke this, and it's the basic strategy of a rush deck. Variants include:
  • Murloc rush, with the buff abilities of some of them being reliant on either having multiple murlocs, or summoning multiple murlocs.
  • Uther and Thrall, who summon low powered minions with their hero powers, can use this strategy too. The Odd Paladin archetype allows Uther to constantly churn out weenies, two at a time, with his hero power. The deck's main strategy is to simply throw wave after wave of Silver Hand Recruits, often augmented by various buffs, at the opponent until they run out of answers and fold under sheer weight of numbers.
  • Onyxia's battlecry effect is to fill all remaining slots on your side of the board with 1/1 whelps.
  • "Zoolock" decks embody this trope. The deck runs many low-cost minions and goes wide with them, and on top of the Warlock's strong early-game minions like Flame Imp and Voidwalker combined with some cheap buffs, It lets them overwhelm the opponent if they don't have any AoE spells to deal with them all.
  • The Hunter card Unleash the Hounds, which summons a 1/1 Hound with Charge for each enemy minion on the field. Gaining 4 Hounds can lead to eliminating a 4-health threat by just quickly brute-forcing it. If this spell is cast while the Hunter has a Starving Buzzard in play, they also draw a card for every hound summoned, fueling this trope further!
  • Druids accomplish this with Treants. They have a classic card that summons 3 2/2 Treants and another that makes their minions summon a Treant on death. Various expansions have added more Treant summoning spells, and one focus from The Boomsday Project was on Treant synergy.